Razor Edge: Razor Trilogy Three (Razor Thriller Romance Novella Book 3) (8 page)

Two cars pulled over, putting on their
hazard lights. A man jumped out and then a woman came running toward me.
“What’s happened? Miss, are you all right?”

Voices rolled around us but I couldn’t
speak. Daniel wasn’t looking at them or me. He was watching the space where his
brother had been alive and talking only seconds before.

“Did someone fall?”

“Was it an accident?”

“Sir, did somebody jump?”

Oh my
god, oh my god, Joel jumped. He’s dead. He’s dead.

The air was a flurry of phone calls. Cell
phones, smart phones pulled out of pockets to call 911. The paramedics would be
here soon but it was too late.

“Why did he do it?” Somebody was asking me.
“Why did he do it?”

I lifted my face to the night sky. It was
ironic that Joel who was so terrified of open space, of life beyond his
apartment, had chosen to end it all in the vast open space of San Francisco Bay.

Daniel’s face closed. He turned away from
me and the crowd who had gathered at the edge of the railing. A bystander
helped me to my feet as I watched him walk back along the bridge, retreating
into the fog.

Daniel Razor was going to look for his
brother’s body and he didn’t need me for that. He didn’t need me at all
anymore.

♫

ANASTASIA IS late for our meeting in
Chinatown. She answered my text, saying she would be here on time but I should’ve
known she’d find some way of screwing with me. She still believes she’s driving
this train.

Contacting her was Phil’s idea. As
Carsten
Pullman once told me, when you have something on a
person, you keep that person safe so you can use her or him over and over again.
I knew the truth about Anastasia and Daniel didn’t. Play one against the other.

It turns out the Redman Foundation is a big
supporter of
Torsten
Hedstrom’s
symphony orchestra which is based in Geneva.
Torsten
is a famous conductor who also happens to act as an advisor on the board of the
Geneva Conservatory. Anastasia agreed to place a call to the board director on
my behalf. Consequently, they invited me to join the summer session beginning
in two weeks—the master class. Naturally, all fees would be paid in advance.
Anastasia is meeting me to hand over a first class plane ticket to Switzerland,
a clean platinum credit card and an envelope of cash. In return, she gets to
keep Daniel Razor.

She can have him. They deserve each other.

I tell myself I have no choice—I had to
resort to extortion to get what I wanted. It’s for the violin, the music, my
future and I have a baby to think about. I tell myself they turned me into this
person. It helps to have someone to blame. I numb myself with a lot of
half-truths about what I’m doing so I can get on that plane without feeling
anything for him.

I’m not sure if it’s working. My heart
still cracks in my chest when I think of the look in his eyes on the bridge
even though it’s been over a month. And then I remember that Daniel Razor, this
man that I can’t stop thinking about—
chose
her over me.
She tried to kill me and he knew all about it. I can never
trust him and I can never forgive him.

And then I’m glad again that I called
Anastasia and brokered a deal.

Just before all this came about, at our
last recital, the quartet voted to give me a solo. A pity solo, I’d said and
Myles agreed. At first I chose Joel’s adagio but at the last minute I picked a
piece that was all mine—that said everything I wanted to say to Daniel but
couldn’t.

I played
Tomaso
Antonio
Vitali’s
Chaconne
for Violin
. Nine minutes.
A tour de force performance.
After I’d finished, I raced offstage and broke down crying in the green room.
Myles came in with Susan and Phil. He stood in the doorway and applauded.

I had finally accepted the cross.

So here I am and here she comes, walking
toward me. Daniel’s fiancée has a sweet smile on her pretty face and a fat
envelope in her hand.

I did it for the music. Just remember that,
Daniel. You knew what I was like from the beginning. I am just like you.

*

CHARLOTTE HAS her violin case in her left hand.
I can see her up ahead, standing in line at the main gate, waiting to board the
international flight to Switzerland.

Marlene, the receptionist who used to work
with Charlotte at Razor Industries told me that Charlotte Dawson was leaving
the country. She didn’t need her old job back because Charlotte was going to
become a classical violinist. “Did you know she played the violin, Mr. Razor?”

Yes, I knew.

I assume she got the money from her lawyer,
Phil.
Or from some other investor.
She got the money
somehow. She was never going to stay, no matter what I once believed.
Or hoped.

Her dark hair is bound up with a ribbon. Her
luggage has already been checked. She’s clutching her boarding pass and
identification in her right hand like someone is going to take it away from her.
Once she’s through the gate, I can’t call her back. I’ll never see her again. The
best thing is to just let her go. I have nothing to offer Charlotte.

I must be watching her too hard because she
glances over her shoulder. Her eyes are curious and wary. I take a step
forward, unwilling, but somehow wanting to force her to make a decision. I
wonder if she’ll acknowledge me, or does she feel as I do—that this is a clean
ending.

No matter what my brain tells me, I stand
rooted to the spot, my hands deep in my pockets against the cool, damp San
Francisco morning. I have everything money could buy and nothing I want. It’s
funny thinking back to that conversation she and I had at dinner. She said I didn’t
know what it was like to want something and not get it. I do now.

I could tell her. It might change things
for us.

I wait for her to make the decision for
both of us. I wait for her to turn back. And it hurts like hell, waiting because
I let myself believe that when she sees me, she’ll leave the line, come back to
me, take my hand and this pain will stop.

Charlotte looks in my direction.
Looks right at me.
She sees me.

And then she squeezes her eyes shut as
though trying not to cry.

She’s not coming back. She’s getting on the
plane.

The pain slams into my chest and I have
trouble breathing for a second. Then I turn away as fast as I can, before I
change my mind and walk rapidly out of the airport. The limousine is waiting
for me at the curb. Jackson is waiting to drive me home. Razor mansion will be lit
up for the party tonight and filled with overnight guests from New York. I’m
hosting a reprise engagement party to apologize to our friends. Marshall will
greet me at the door with his usual gravity. Anastasia is radiant now that both
Joel and Charlotte are gone. My fiancée is almost a girl I could love one day.

I tell myself it doesn’t have to be a
tragedy. My life doesn’t have to be lonely. Charlotte Dawson was just a girl,
not my first girl. Maybe not my last if I can’t be faithful to
Tash
. I’m going to try.

And there were other positives that came
out of this. The takeover bid for Tallulah Cement was killed and the bridges
and buildings that were built with the product are being examined and
overhauled. Razor Industries is thriving with our shares jumping in value when the
story broke.
Carsten’s
body was found.

The negatives.

Joel’s body was never recovered. And I’ll
never be the same.

I used to have a purpose in life. My
purpose was my brother, Joel. There’s no way back from that failure. My death
wish has finally caught up with me, only not with my death. A life lived on the
edge, a life of recklessness and extraordinary good fortune....

All I have now is the image of Joel pushing
himself off the Golden Gate Bridge.

As it did with my father before me, Daniel
Razor’s luck has finally run out.

the
end.

Nadine
Doolittle
was born in 1960 in
Comox
, British Columbia, the
third daughter of an RCAF mechanic and his Scottish wife. A graduate of
Vancouver’s prestigious Studio 58 Theatre Program, her career detoured from
acting to casting for film and television with Toronto’s Alliance Films, and
finally to writing for the award-winning weekly newspaper,
The Low Down to Hull and Back News.

Her debut novel,
Iced Under
was
shortlisted
for Canada’s
Arthur Ellis Award for Best First Novel in 2009 (Crime Fiction). Her second
book,
The Grey Lady
, was published
electronically by Toronto’s McArthur and Company in 2011 and has been
re-released by the author.
The River
Bride
is her third mystery-suspense in the series.

Nadine has two grown children, two
stepdaughters, a cat, and two grandsons. She lives with her partner Tim in a
beautiful house on 22 forested acres in West Quebec where she writes full time.

Contact Nadine at:
http://www.nadinedoolittle.blogspot.com

Visit
my Author Page on Amazon

The author is a member of The Writers’ Union of Canada

***

No serial killers.
No psychopaths. It’s the one you thought you knew.

THE SETTING is the villages and wilderness
places of
Québec
with all the limitations a rural
society enjoys and puts up with. Homicide in this neck of the woods is not solved
by high tech law enforcement but by the deductive genius of Detective Sergeant
Rompré
. The mystery lies not only in “who done it,” but “why
done
it”. How are lives transformed by the heartbreak,
betrayal and loss that are the fruit of violent crime? Is forgiveness and
redemption possible? The murder is just the beginning.

THE RIVER
BRIDE

Marlee
Bremer claims her husband is a sexual deviant. Convicted rapist and
murderer, Trey Bremer insists it was only a game. The truth of what really
happened to Teresa
Musgrave
that day begins to
unravel when an anonymous note arrives at the
Stollerton
Record
. On the hunt for the big story that could save her career,
Alvina
Moon is caught up in a disturbing crime and the
victim’s beautiful, troubled artist husband.

THE GREY
LADY

A driving rainstorm.
A remote country home.
And
one killer.
Secrets, lies and hidden hates surface at a gathering of
eight to celebrate Malcolm Driver—a successful author, spiritual leader and
former member of a commune where a young pregnant girl was drowned.

“As
with any good mystery, virtually everyone has something to hide ... tightly
written and perfectly paced, we feel we are being swept along by the story like
a fallen branch in a fast-flowing river of spring runoff.”
 
—MONTREAL REVIEW OF BOOKS

ICED UNDER

Sara
Wolesley
abandons her comfortable life in Toronto and with her two daughters in tow,
takes possession of a rundown cottage on a frozen lake. But escape isn’t that
easy. Sara is broke and close to a breakdown when she discovers the body of a
child trapped under the clear ice. Her name is
Oralee
Pelletier and she has been missing for five months.

2009
Shortlist for Canada’s Arthur Ellis Award for Best First Novel (Crime Fiction)

“The
plot is well managed with its mixture of mysteries and Sara’s deteriorating
family circumstances as a nearly poverty stricken divorcee (...) Given her
achievements here, Nadine
Doolittle’s
name is one to
watch for in the future.”
—MYSTERIOUS REVIEWS for
Hidden Staircase Mystery Books

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GATINEAU HILLS MYSTERIES
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